Why can't I set the Image Source in WPF app? - wpf

Question

I'm just learning WPF. I'm using VS 2008. I've added an Image control to my XAML, and I added a GIF file to the project. If I use the XAML Designer's property panel to set the image's Source property, the drop-down list for the Source property contains the following:
C:\Sample Project;component/pinHorizontal.gif
There are several problems with this:
My project, named "Sample Project," is not in the root of my drive.
Why is ";component" in there?
If I select this value as given, I get the error "Property value is not valid" (yeah, no kidding).
If I go into the XAML source and set the Source property manually, like so:
<Image Name="PinImage" Source="pinHorizontal.gif"/>
The XAML Designer gives me this error:
"The file pinHorizontal.gif is not part of the project or its 'Build Action' property is not set to 'Resource'."
Why is this task so difficult? How do I assign an image source?

Answer 1

Have a read through this article - though be warned it's not particularly light reading :-)
I suspect what you want for your image path is pack://application:,,,/pinHorizontal.gif. if your image is set to a BuildAction of Resource, this will work fine.

Answer 2

Right click on the image file(pinHorizontal.gif) in the SolutionExplorer, Go to properties, here is the 'Build Action' property, you need to set it to 'Resource'. Hope it helps!!

Answer 3

This post is an "and also"... not an answer to the original question.
I just thought I'd document it in case some other poor booger has this problem in future... and googling that error message finds this SO question... so here's a good place to do so.
I've been creating new icons (actually bitmaps) and adding them "on the fly" to my Visual Studio 2008 project (i.e. Add ~ Existing item). The IDE has been reporting file ${filename} is not part of the project or its 'Build Action' property is not set to 'Resource' errors on my XAML page... but my project builds and runs OK... so what gives???
I tried everything I could think of the get visual studio to refresh it's view of the filesystem, to no avail.
Well, I've just dicovered that restarting Visual Studio "refeshes" its cache of filesystem/build-output contents, which makes those annoying non-errors in the IDE go away. So I add a batch of icons, mark them all as Resources ~ Copy if newer, build, and then restart the IDE, and it's all good.
Cheers all. Keith.

Answer 4

In the Solution Explorer, select your project and right click rebuild the solution, and try to add the image again, it should work fine.
--or--
under the Build tab select rebuild the solution, and try to add the image again.

Answer 5

You can use this piece of code in the XAML to load an image from the absolute path without setting nothing. Use DecodePixelWidth or DecodePixelHeight to save application memory.
<Image>
<Image.Source>
<BitmapImage DecodePixelWidth="200" UriSource="C:\image.png" />
</Image.Source>
</Image>
Hope it helps!

Answer 6

I was having the exact same problem. I just manually typed in the location of the file when the Choose image box pops up and that worked for me.
I opened the Choose image box again after I got it to work and noticed that file:/// was now in front of the file location. I know next to nothing about Visual Basic (which is what I'm using) so there may be a good explanation for this, but I don't have it.